Poems By Arjava

With Jade-White-Petals

FOR the moon-pale feet of Laelia the still night sheddeth dew.

Or at noon in the white-rose garden—domed with a trance of blue—

Blossoms with jade-white petals before her feet are shed

And fall from the dreaming rose-trees, with never a leaf of red.

The foam-pale hands of Laelia that weave my web of dream,—

How they pluck white water-lilies afloat on a languid stream,

And how from the strings of a zither they slowly waken strain

Lustrously pale as the starlight when the air has been washed by the rain.

In a moth-like silence I gather blooms of the night for her brow ;

As in a shrine men proffer trophies with prayer and vow,

I would weave a crown of whiteness, a glimmer in the dream-charged air,

And raise it in suppliant hands to the dim darkness of her hair.

Your name is fading music upon my worship's mouth ;

It spills in languorous fragrance from lilies of the South ;

It is the odorous night-flower wherewith your locks are bound,—

Or the moon-pale soul of roses caught in a mesh of sound.

December 5, 1936.